Businesses selling via online marketplace platforms (Amazon, eBay, etc.) must manage their inventory for various reasons. One major problem these businesses face is maintaining correct stock levels. Marketplaces have rules and systems for providing visibility for a merchant's listings. Experience teaches that merchants who consistently ship quality products on demand get better placement, which results in increased sales volume. Running out of stock or shipping non-quality products is undesirable (resulting in days of lost sales) and complicates inventory management, as running out of stock or shipping non-quality products will affect the “momentum” of the stock-keeping unit long after stock has been replenished.
In conventional inventory management systems, a common problem is tying up too much resource in unnecessary inventory management to ensure that stock is present and of high quality. Applying resources to unnecessary tasks reduces workforce available to other, more important tasks.